Annunciate Monastery Aachen
The Annuntiatenkloster Aachen was the branch of the Annuntiaten in Aachen . It was built in 1649 in the area of today's Kármánauditorium in the immediate vicinity of the Klosterrath Hof and secularized in 1802 . The monastery buildings then served temporarily as a hospital and were demolished in 1874.
history
In April 1646 four sisters from the Düren Annuntiate Monastery were sent to Aachen, where they initially stayed in a private house. The guardian of the Franciscan monastery , Heinrich Isendorn zu Blois OFM , had tried to settle the sisters in Aachen . With the help of sponsors, it was soon possible for them to acquire a house with an orchard behind the Klosterrather Hof, which they could move into on November 14, 1649 after appropriate renovation as a simple single-winged convent building with an integrated oratory . A few years later, on May 2, 1656, the great fire of Aachen destroyed the monastery complex and the sisters found temporary accommodation in the Burtscheid Abbey before they returned to their mother house in Düren.
Meanwhile, in the following months, the Aachen convent building was restored to such an extent that the sisters were able to move into their monastery in Aachen again in October 1660. In order to get more money for the construction of a monastery church, they sold part of their burned property to the abbot Winand Lamberti of the abbey of Rolduc . With the proceeds from the purchase and additional funding, the sisters were finally able to start building the church in 1669. The foundation stone found during excavation work in 1893 confirms the laying of the foundation stone with an inscription on an applied lead plate. The inscription reads:
“ANNO • AFTER • CHRIST • BIRTH • 1669 • THE • 8 • 7BRIS • UNDER • GOVERNMENT • PABHS • CLEMENTIS • OF • 9 • ROEMIC • EMPEROR • LEOPOLDI • OF • THE FIRST • MAXIMILIANI • HENRICH • BISHOPS • TO • LUTICH • BONAVENTURA • ANCILLA • REULL • PROVINCIAL • MATRIS • SIBILLAE • KAMMERLIXES • BLESSED • THE • FIRST • STONE • TO THE CHURCH • THE • VEST • MR • PETER • MELCHIORIS • FROM • THE • STEGE • ABT • TO • CLOESTER BIKE • AND • GELT • IN THE TAKE OF • THE • IMPERIAL • FREE • EMPIRE • ACHEN • CIVIL • CITIZENSHIP • BY • THE • WOLEDEL • BORN • Mister • JOHAN • BERTRAM • BY • WEILERRE • BURGER • AND • LADY MASTER • AND • THE • NOBLE • NICOLAUM • CASTLE MASTER • TO • HONOR • THE • HEAVENLY • QUEEN • MARY • AND • THE • HOLY • GUARDIAN ANGELS • SOLLE • THEREFORE • THESE • CLOESTERS • WILL • BE • ANNUNCIATEN • JUNFFERCLOESTERS • TO • THE • SAINTS.
A year later the sources of money dried up again and the construction of the church came to a standstill for the time being, despite requests from the sisters. It was not until the 1670s that construction work on the church could be continued after large donations were received, and it was finally consecrated in July 1678. The church was located roughly where Vincenzstrasse / Kármánstrasse joins the Annuntiatenbach street and was a simple single-nave building, the ground floor of which was about 1.80 meters above street level. The eight axes were connected between the tall windows with anchoring keys welded in a spiral . On the roof ridge was an elongated, open onion dome with a curved hood. Inside the simple church was covered with a barrel vault . The protruding nuns gallery rested on four columns with square plinths. The existence of a monstrance , which was donated to the monastery church in the early 17th century and was exhibited in the Center Charlemagne in 2017, has been documented as the most valuable possession of the monastery .
At the beginning of the 18th century, the sisters also planned an expansion of their monastery building, for which the Aachen city master builder Laurenz Mefferdatis had drawn up a design, which again could never be implemented due to lack of money.
After the French invasion in 1794 and the secularization of the Annunciaten Monastery in 1802 by the new rulers, Napoléon Bonaparte donated the monastery to the city of Aachen for the care and care of "poor lunatics" and for "correction of sick girls." After the French left, the city government made the old monastery building available to the Aachen pharmacist Johann Peter Joseph Monheim , who set up the so-called “Vincenzspital” there on March 28, 1823 for terminally ill and elderly patients. These were then relocated in 1855 to the newly built “Maria-Hilf-Hospital” at today's Kurpark Aachen . The former monastery took in mentally handicapped women again until 1875, before it had to be finally demolished because of its dilapidation.
The street names "Vincenzstraße", which later became "Kármánstraße", and today's street "Annuntiatenbach", although the Johannisbach flows through there, remind of the earlier existence of the Annuntiatenkloster and the Vincenzspital .
literature
- Christian Quix : The former Annunciate Monastery in Aachen. In: Contributions to the history of the city of Aachen and its surroundings . Verlag JA Mayer, Aachen 1838. pp. 130–132 ( digitalized )
- Paul Clemen : Aachen city monasteries and their history , In: Karl Faimonville, among other things: The monuments of the city of Aachen . Bd. II .: The churches of the city of Aachen Düsseldorf 1922
Individual evidence
- ^ Christian Quix : Franciscan monastery and church. In: Contributions to the history of the city of Aachen and its surroundings. Aachen 1838, pp. 136–144, here p. 143 ( digitized )
- ^ Matthias Hinrichs: Reformation and the consequences in the triangle: Three exhibitions , in: Aachener Zeitung, May 31, 2017
Coordinates: 50 ° 46 ′ 34.75 " N , 6 ° 4 ′ 47.89" E